In rebuttal:

And they are both right. I did not have a great speaking voice as a young woman. Nevertheless I kept seeking and accepting opportunities to lead organizations from my Brownie Girl Scout (5-7 years old) days forward, thinking that I could work in the background and not have to talk much.

As a child I played with how I sounded. There were speech “fads” that came and went up until I graduated from high school. Then I settled down to an ordinary voice.

In my 20s I began to listen to myself. I sounded nasal, with little intonation, and just talked too darn fast. I joined a speaking club but refused to tape and listen to my speech because I did not care to hear myself. It wasn’t that bad…I have always been a perfectionist. I had to cure myself of that.

Although I did not practice, per se, I consciously slowed myself down. That slowing allowed me to think about how I moved my mouth around each word. At the end of my three years in my Bank Speaking Club I served as President and received an award for the most humorous speech.

All this time I was unconsciously soaking up sounds from the tens of thousands of people I was to encounter in the next 40 years.

Then I had to get upper dentures, and thus learn to speak all over again. The dentures were in the way of my tongue. People were unable to understand me on the phone. I worked for two years to eliminate the lisp.

I met a man in 2013 through Craigslist. I placed a w for m date ad. Out of the hundred or so replies I received, he was first in line. We spoke on the phone before we met. His voice arrested me right away. It took me a moment to regain my composure enough to say, Hi. He noticed, he confessed just last month. He heard me gulp.

His experience was this: my voice was so devoid of accent that I could have been born in any country. He couldn’t tell anything about me other than that I was a sophisticated and articulate speaker. I could have come from anywhere.

Local Bernie 2016 supporters to hold“Organizing Kickoff”Wednesday July 29, 2015

Event in Oakland, one of over 2,000 similar events happening simultaneously across the country

Bernie Sanders, Senator and Democratic Presidental Candidate

WHAT: Local supporters of Bernie 2016 will host an “Organizing Kickoff.” We will watch a live video message from Sen. Sanders and sign up to join teams that will organize locally and nationally throughout the 2016 campaign. The local gathering is one of more than 2,000 similar events happening nationwide, with more than 70,000 signed up to attend, making the kickoff the largest event of the 2016 election to date.

WHO: Some local supporters of Bernie Sanders. Members of Lake Neighbors, Cleveland Heights, Next Door Park and friends have been invited to attend this event on the rooftop garden at Park Blvd. and Cleveland, weather permitting.

Polling on both sides shows voters are not happy with the status quo.

Of all of the arguments the Democratic establishment has thrown out against the Bernie Sanders candidacy, perhaps the most reoccurring one revolves around electability. “Sure, you agree with him,” they argue, “but he can’t win.”

A just released CNN poll finds Sanders out-polling all of the GOP’s major candidates, though pretty much tied with Jeb Bush. Here’s how Sanders stacks up:

SANDERS: 48%
BUSH: 47%

SANDERS: 48%
WALKER: 42%

SANDERS: 59%
TRUMP: 38%
If you limit the poll sample to just registered voters, Bush defeats Sanders by a single point.
Either way, this credible poll suggests that Sanders is not just some pie in the sky general election candidate. His more uphill battle may be the primary. But even there, he has some strengths. Polling out last week shows he’s the only candidate from either side who has a net favorability rating.

It grieves me to report that we commenters at the New York Times were given so little opportunity to weigh in with our views on the newest announced Republican candidate for President of the United States (hereinafter POTUS) Scott Walker.

The Times closed the comments section after only 63 posts. I do have to say that the commenters were remarkably consistent in expressing their utter disdain for the delusional Walker. I must compliment him on his skillfully executed word salad, but I can’t think of any other reason to support him.

Riding a motorcycle and destroying the fine Wisconsin state education system do not impress more than a few million people as commendable acts for a candidate to run on.

Read yesterday, late, that Iowa has cancelled it’s First in the Nation “Straw Vote.” The New York Times said, With (mostly the large field of Republican) Candidates Staying Out, Iowa Straw Poll Dies. This is the official reason the Straw Vote, otherwise called a Caucus, is being dumped.

I think the truth is more complicated.

One, the Iowa Caucus results in 2008 lit the fire under the first Obama Presidential Campaign. Iowa’s early winners can end up at the bottom of the pile. Look at Michelle Bachmann. Neither Republics or Democrats want that to happen again. Hillary is finding that Bernie, the only candidate telling it like it is, may force her to abandon her corporate masters, at least during the campaign.

You know what they say about a constituent’s hell: it’s heaven, until after the votes are counted. We lose, corporations win.

Two, Bernie Sanders’ candidacy has created much more interest in both the campaigns and elections. The more people who hear Sanders’ messages, the more whose hearts will be moved.

Three, Joni Ernst’s Roast and Ride was a big flop, I bet. No one wants to think about hog castration when they look at at a Senator. Plus, she never says much that invites conversation, it appears.

Four, wouldya take a look at the Republican field? They have nothing to say to us that we haven’t heard a million times. They have nothing to say to us that we haven’t been forced to try before.

For example, we have seen now what happens when we cut taxes. The elite claims that when we cut taxes they make jobs for us. If that were the case, we should be ROLLING in jobs right now, after cutting the percentage of money that rich people pay and increasing the percentage that the middle class has to pay. (1

Some of us believed it when the Republic Party said it held the moral high ground and that the Vietnam War was a good war, so as morally high-grounded youth we joined the Republican Party. That only lasted about 3 years. After Watergate, I started searching for answers about why my party had to resort to burglary to win an election. I began to learn about all the dirty deals and dirty tricks Republicans played on the American taxpayer.

Republicans talk about Democrats being corrupt. Some of them are, but when they steal from us their goals are modest. They may want a summer house or a mink stole. Nixon, on the other hand, would not stand by and lose the Presidential Election in ’52 and again in 1960, so he bribed the VietCong to stay away from the bargaining table until he was elected. The moral bankruptcy of the Republics, hyping the burglars and the Iran-Contra criminals as patriotic role models has turned their party into nothing more than a spiked punchbowl.

One good thing, though, I must say. Rick Santorum held a campaign event in Iowa and the only one who showed was the head of the County Republican Party. Most of average intelligence would decide to dock their campaign ship for good. Let’s see what the less than smart will do.

###

1) Carly “just call me Daisy” Fiorino went out to Iowa, tyed a designer gingham blouse over her jeans, jumped up on a wagon, and told her poor little rich magnate story about having to pay taxes in 13 states. That is on her $248 Billion portfolio. Each extra state’s tax costs her about $100. Rich people problems everywhere were turn. Gasp. If I pay state tax in 13 different states, will I become an absurdly rich complainer? See how I avoided that?

Rand Paul wants to divide Social Security recipients by demonizing Americans living with disabilities – “You know, over half the people on disability are either anxious or their back hurts. Join the club.”

Mr. Paul, you are a physician. I am sure that you have seen people with rheumatoid arthritis, degenerated hips, lumbar stenosis, ankylosing spondilitis, degenerative disc disease, and other terrible musculo-conditions that cause suffering 24 hours a day. It isn’t like you say. You imply that back pain is a trifling condition.

Do we really want someone as lazy as you to be our President? Do we really want someone as mean as you as our President?

On the average, people who are granted SSDI and SSI die within 5 years. These benefits to not constitute a vacation for us. People wait years and go through all of their savings. Some don’t make it. They die or commit suicide.

It is incredibly difficult to get approved for Social Security Disability Insurance. Take me, say. I was a passenger in a car hit head by an old heavy Chevy Van in 1982. I was not allowed to return to work until 6 months after the accident. I have had six surgeries on my legs since then.

Fast-forward to 2007. I had no health insurance and no money to pay for medical expenses. My back was constantly seizing up. My legs failed me often. I bought a motorized scooter so I could run errands.

Fast forward to 2011. So many nights, I would be sitting at my desk, when I would notice the pain creeping up from my legs and eventually gripping my entire body. I could not think. If I ventured out of the house, I would be in severe pain for the next two days. My hips ached and pain shot from them down my legs.

I was found disabled by the Social Security Admin. I began to receive SSI payments. My disabilities are severe and persistent. No one questions why I don’t have a job when they hear what’s wrong with me.

By October of 2013, I was in so much pain that I could not sit in any chair. I was confined to my bed for six months, hoping that rest would restore me. Didn’t happen. People refused to believe my descriptions of my symptoms, because they varied. The one consistent sign about my condition was the 8-10 level pain and ache in my entire lower body.

In April of 2014, I finally got an MRI promised to me in December. I had a condition I had never heard of. Lumber stenosis with severe neurogenic claudication. That is Latin for “This thing hurts like a son of a gun.”

Stenosis conditions are managed by steroid shots and a complicated list of pharmaceuticals that keep the pain down for a while. I also have moderate cervical spine stenosis.

This condition squeezes and puts pressure on the spinal cord. The squeeze is on several different places. The symptoms can vary for that reason.

I have reached the limit on steroid shots for a year. I have to work from my bed. I can’t let my tax clients down.

I am too fragile to move myself to another residence. I rarely leave my home. I also suffer from degenerative arthritis in my hips. I cannot walk further than one block from my house.

My SSDI disability claim has been languishing in the appeal process for 4 years now.

The reason my case is in appeal status is that I made my claim more than two years after the last date I was employed by someone else. Modest earnings from self-employment income that I paid taxes on does not count.

I have it soooo easy. Wanna change places?

So many people who are disabled are excluded from SSDI benefits because of that 2-year rule. It should be repealed. Illnesses don’t suddenly appear conveniently before that 2-year deadline. Some injuries take decades to disable us, like mine did. I worked as long as I could. You really wouldn’t rather I die, would you?

NB. About the 6 ways: I did not count how many ways it conflicted. I do know that people open emails that have numbers in the heading, so there ya go.

The extreme traveller and one-term Senator from Iowa Joni Ernst has added another destination to her 99-county tour of Iowa*…VietNam. I am sure that Joni’s constituents had listed Joni going to VietNam as one of their top three important issues. That is, after she had gone to every Iowan’s County and LOOKED at it. Joni also went to Washington D.C. and strode purposefully into the Senate Chamber.

This trip to VietNam is a first for Joni – a Congressional Junket. We used to make fun of these trips as pork. Why? Because there is NO FREAKING REASON for six US Senators to go to Ho Chi Minh City all at the same time. And there’s even less of a reason for Joni Ernst to go to VietNam. Maybe she wanted to look at more farming equipment. You got me.

Wait, wait, an image is coming clear in my crystal ball. Joni is going to VietNam to make contacts for her REAL bosses, the chemical corporations. Because after all, Asia has not had enough green revolution Monsanto ADM Cargill Dow spread over its farmlands.

Joni, who promised to CUT PORK out of the Federal Budget, (by makinem squeal, ya know) is covering herself hip deep in it already.

*Wait. Whaaaa? Iowa has 99 counties? Heck, California only has 57 counties, and it has 10x as many people and 20x as much land. Why do people in the Midwest say they are against big government? Why do Iowa and California both have the same number of Senators? SMH.

That Joni Ernst, she’s goin somewhere and makin em squeal. She is the new U.S. Senator from Iowa. How, do you think, could such an empty suit win over the Democrat, who is a far better person? Well, that far-better person turned out to be not such a skilled candidate.

He used words more than 5 letters long far too often, it seemed. On the other hand, Joni Ernst won her seat with the “Make em squeal” slogan. If you are among the fortunate who do not know the source of this slogan, I will leave that explanation to your own initiative. I don’t care to repeat it.

Always looking for entertainment, I thought that it might be fun to see how Joni Ernst’s career progressed. So I set up an Internet news alert for her name way back in July of 2014.

For sure she does one thing real well. Go places.

Nearly every alert I have seen tells the world about the places she has been or the places she is going to. I am not exaggerating. I say at least 95%. After her election, we were treated to a video of her firm stride into the U.S. Senate. That is all until her big speech favoring privatization of V.A. psychiatric care a couple of weeks ago.

This coming weekend is the Joni Ernst Hog Roast and Ride. Yes, that’s right! Joni Ernst outdo herself by taking a ride on a Harley and still not go anywhere.

But wait, there’s more! She is only part way through her tour of the 99 Iowa counties. What? Iowa has 99 counties? Do you understand how that is waaay too many counties?

California, for example, has 58 counties for 38,000,000 people. Iowa’s 3 million people live in 99 counties. Lets take an average. Each county there holds 30,000 people with its own bureaucracy, own equipment, own bosses, own sheriff, on and on. Each California county holds 655,172 people. If Cali had 99 counties, each would still hold 383,000 people, 13 times the number of each average Iowa county.

Now tell me again about how California, a Democratic state, is the state of Big Government and Red States belong to the party of Small Government.

This coming weekend, you can join people in Iowa for Joni’s Hog Roast and Ride. There she will outdo herself by riding on a Harley and still not going anywhere.

You can join if you are invited or a credentialed member of the press who RSVPs before the event, that is. No regular people allowed.

This is what the arrogant morons who comprise the US government have stirred up. Watch this video for its entire 1 hour 20 minutes, and then ask yourself if Washington is making a good decision by driving us into conflict with Russia. (You might have to use your cursor to push the circle with the dot back to the beginning of the video.)

Americans, being an insouciant people, are unaware that it was Russians, not England’s Wellington, who defeated Napoleon. The Grande Army did not return from Russia. The loss broke the back of French military power.

The German Wehrmacht, which in a few days overran France and drove the British off the continent, was destroyed in Russia by the Red Army. The allied invasion of Normandy encountered only a few under-strength German units deprived of fuel. The German army and all available resources were on the Russian front.

Americans played a small role in the war against Hitler. Eisenhower cleverly waited until the Red Army had defeated Hitler, and then invaded long after the tide had turned against Germany. Today Washington claims credit for winning a war in which Washington’s role was small.

What a lovely date! May 1 is the real Labor Day all over the rest of the world, but not in the USA.

Why? Because we do not honor our workers. The apex of workers’ rights protection occured in 1936 with the passage of the Wagner Act. That Act protected workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively. Anyone who thinks that he and an employer are both equally empowered is doomed to a low retirement income.

The forces of evil immediately began planning how to hamstring the rights given to workers in 1936. Only 12 years after its passage, the Wagner Act was supplanted by the Taft-Hartley Act. This act undercut workers’ rights by shifting the burden of proof to the individual worker and away from the corporation.

The moral of the story? 1948 inaugurated the destruction of worker rights in the USA. My coursework in US Labor History and US Labor Law demonstrates the volcanic downward pressure on human freedom and human liberty.

Even the anti-human right wingers in my Labor Law class were satisfied that the labor movement is nearly dead. Victory over the public servant worker organizations is all that remains for the complete destruction of the worker protections that people fought and died for.

Myth 1: Government employees are harder to fire than private sector employees.

As an employee you should know for example that your First Amendment Rights AND your Second Amendment Rights are meaningless at work. Happily, labor and employment law protects your 14th Amendment rights of Due Process and Equal Protection. Every single one of us has those protections, unless we waived them when we signed that at-will employment contract of adhesion.

Government workers are protected better than private sector workers because government emloyers are expected to adhere to our laws. Nothing more, nothing less. Labor law allows the employer and the employee the ability to communicate necessary information without jumping prematurely to termination.

At most, the employer need only have three formal discussions with an employee before termination.

Analysis: complaints about lazy government employees are aimed at destruction of not just government worker rights, but all worker rights. See: The public unions must be destroyed.

About Via LaRosa

You might wonder why Ms. LaRosa has wrtten all this stuff for the Internet. Well, she is a writer, and has been involuntarily unemployed since 2004. Since you can't send out resumes 16 hours a day, she researches, reads, and writes about her findings.
She graduated from law school in 2004 at the age of 54. She started law school three weeks before 911, and the experience turned out to be educational in ways she never could have anticipated.
She maintains a blog at Hypatia of California, where she posts sophisticated analyses of world events alongside divinely silly satire.
Ms. LaRosa likes to have fun and does not like character-building experiences.
This website was born on November 27, 2011. It will change, She promises you. If you think the change is not for the better, please share! See, the more editors I have, the better I work.
Please contact her at via at olivialarosa.com to join the larosalist or for any other reason. Kindly humor her by sending only clean and legal communications. Thank you so much.